More Baseball For All Star Week, A Few Short Speeches, Songs by Mike and Songs at Home, More Supreme Court and ALVIN!

It's All Star Week. And what better time of year to share yet another tape of early 1960's baseball, including part of an All Star game broadcast. 

Here's what was recorded on the first side of the tape. Most of this is game played between the White Sox and the Tigers in Detroit on July 3rd, 1962, but there are a few interruptions by other recordings, including a few double recordings along the way at another speed. And even more oddly, unless I miss my guess, it sure seems like this side of the tape begins near the end of the game mentioned, and then a short time later, it's early in the same game, and we hear the progress of the game from that point forwards. I'm not sure how that happened, but I didn't mess with this tape in any way, aside from adjusting the sound levels here and there. 

Download: (Mostly) Chicago White Sox at Detroit Tigers, 7-3-62

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The other side of the tape contains a recording of the national broadcast of that year's second All Star Game (yes, they had two of them for a few years), at Wrigley Field. Again, there are a few (fewer, though) interruptions by other material herein. 

I'm sure this recording is available elsewhere online, and in significantly higher quality, but I've chosen to share this recording because it has a few local ads amidst all of the national ones (many of which feature player endorsements of various products) and because it has a local break-in at one point for a news bulletin about a local, at-that-moment-in-progress criminal act. 

Download: (Mostly) The Second 1962 All-Star Game at Wrigley Field, 7-30-62

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For those of you who are not enamored of baseball (although I can't fathom that such people exist), or of these somewhat hard to listen recordings, I will add that, at the moment, I am not aware of any further baseball recordings in my collection. That said, I may find more tomorrow!

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Three posts ago, I offered up a woozy radio broadcast of speeches made by members of Toastmistresses. Today, I have another tape of speeches, made more informally - and rather randomly - by what seems to be a similar group, this time a group of men. This doesn't seem to be a Toastmasters group - the name of the group is said at one point - I think - but I can't make it out. These speeches - and some of them barely qualify as such - certainly seem more off the cuff and less prepared than other things I've heard from participants in Toastmasters. 

Download: Members of a Toastmasters-Type Group - A Few Short Speeches

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I came across a tape which contained a greeting card with the following documentation inside: 

This therefore appears to be a demo reel by someone named Mike Davidson. The tape opens with a short testimonial (the beginning is missing) from someone clearly trying to sell someone else on this person's talents, and then the songs listed are heard. At some point, this tape of recommendation (or perhaps a copy) found its way back to the artist, and he seems to have sent it on to someone else, with an addition: As indicated by the handwritten note at the bottom of the typed list, there is a second version of one of the songs, arranged and produced later than the original version, which Mike Davidson apparently thought was a considerable improvement on the original. 

I have been unable to find out anything about this songwriter/performer, so maybe he never "made it" to any degree, but if anyone out there knows who he is/was and what happened to him, please share that information in the comments. 

Download: Mike Davidson - Songs by Mike Davidson

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Here is what the outside of the card looks like - the picture is shared upside down so that you can see the writing on the back

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In my last two posts, I featured the first two in a three episode series of "Continental Classroom" episodes, from February of 1963, all about The Supreme Court. Here is the last of the three programs I found on that reel. Actually, the most interesting thing here may be the short segment of the start of The Today Show from that same date, which was captured after the Classroom episode ended. 

Download: Continental Classroom - 2-14-63 - The Supreme Court, Part Three - The Court's Work Load (and a bit of The Today Show)

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Now here's something which I just love. I don't know how much those of you out there enjoy it, so I don't force feed it to you, but if this site was just for me, there'd be something like this every single time I came across it. 

Basically, it's people at home, playing instruments and singing, for their own enjoyment. I should clarify that it's people who are capable of playing and singing well, and not things like our pal Pete, from a bit earlier this year. I don't mean to say that these are virtuosos, but this is a lovely little listen for those who enjoy down-home folks making down-home music. 

At various points in this recording, there is ukulele, guitar (sounding like a mandolin at times), simple drumming and a recorder-like instrument (I'm not sure that's what it is), along with the singing.  There are several songs performed during the nearly half hour of music, including "Memories Are Made of This" (one of the greatest songs ever written, and done here simply and very sweetly), "You Tell Me Your Dream", "Chinatown", "Bye Bye Blues" and "Who's Sorry Now", among several others. There is a conversation early on, about some local radio performer and his take off on "The Old Philosopher", as well as a lame joke about Mayor Daley of Chicago, but once that's over, it's music, music, music.

That is, until about the 28th minute. I will say no more, besides to say that the last three minutes and ten seconds are something else entirely - several something else's - and that it's best if I let you listen without telling you what to expect. 

Download: Unknown - Music At Home (and a Bit More)

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For this post's "Very Short Reel".... well, this is more than a bit of a cheat. This came at the end of 35 or 40 minutes worth of someone's recording of the soundtrack to the film "Gigi". The person who recorded the album for later enjoyment (presumably him, anyway), chose to "back-announce" what the listener had just heard by doing a quick, brief "Alvin the Chipmunk" impersonation, and then interacting with "Alvin". Here is that bit of tape: 

Download: Unknown: "Alvin" Back-Announces the Album

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Some Possibly Rare and Definitely Awful Johnny Carson, Beautiful Army Music, More Phone Training

Hellooooo, 

For the first offering today, I'm going to share something I believe to be quite rare. At least, I've been unable to find a trace of this recording online anywhere. In 1969-70, Johnny Carson produced four prime time specials, consisting of big name stars doing skits with Carson, much the same as the skits he would often do during one of the segments of his TV show, except this would be an entire episode of such skits. As I said, I can't find hide nor hair of this work anywhere out there in the internet tubes. Maybe it's there and I missed it.

These shows appear to have gone over like a lead balloon. I've found two reviews of them - one from the New York Times the next day, and one from The Village Voice nearly a month later. Despite the time lag on the latter, they both seem to reflect the writers' thoughts on this particular special, and not one of the other three. For the Times review, this is obvious - the writer takes Carson to task for the adolescent and prurient nature of the material - which is absolutely a reference to this episode. As you'll hear, the skits involved are wholly stupid and about on the level of a 12 year old. For the Voice review, it mentions the same stars being in the episode as are heard here (and also references the sixth grade level of the material, a thought that occurred to me separate from the review). The Times review is here. The Voice review is here. 

Oh, and the sound quality here is abysmal. This was recorded extremely softly, and I boosted it about 500%. There is interference from jazz recorded on the other channel at times, and an astoundingly annoying high pitched whine/whistle at other times. On the other hand, the commercials are preserved, making this a nice time capsule from that aspect. The recording stops suddenly at the 52:38 minute mark, meaning we miss the final commercials and last segment of the show. 

Download: The Johnny Carson Special - 11-12-69

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There has been a lot of good response here to recordings of Beautiful Music programming. This short tape - while it qualifies in that category - is a bit different from other such programming, in that it seems to have come from a radio station or perhaps some sort of closed circuit programming which was housed in and directed at the residents of an army base. Rather than commercials, there are frequent plugs for different events and activities on the base. 

Download: Beautiful Music Programming from an Army Base Radio Station

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I called this next one "Telephone Call Examples for Service Observing People". That's a pretty weird and clumsy name, but that's how the tape is introduced. This is yet another in a large number of 1960's telephone training tapes I bought many years ago. 

Download: Telephone Call Examples for Service Observing People

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Last time around, I shared a fairly lengthy tape of WBBM-FM, Chicago, during its "Young Sound" days. Here is another tape from the same collection, featuring three Chicago stations, from roughly the same time period, marred, in this case, by a significant amount of odd and annoying echo. The stations are WBBM (again), WJJD and WNUS. 

Download: Chicago Radio, Late 1960's (with a lot of Echo) - WBBM, WJJD & WNUS

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This next tape is called "Benny Miller's Birthday Party". This is a small get together of a few friends and relatives, and I think that's pretty much all I'll say about it. No, it isn't. I'll say one thing: this seems to feature a time, place and type of people that have been completely extinguished in 21st Century America. Perhaps I'm totally wrong, and my lack of experience of this sort of gang is an accident of my place of birth, type of upbringing, education or whatever. I just wonder if any get birthday get togethers or other small gatherings sound remotely like this, anymore. 

Download: Benny and His Guests - Benny Miller's Birthday Party

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Also last time around (just like the Chicago Radio material), I shared part one of a three part series on The Supreme Court, as presented in February of 1963 on the TV educations program, "Continental Classroom". Here is part two of that series: 

Download: Continental Classroom - 2-13-63 - The Supreme Court, Part Two - Restraints on the Court

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And now, for our "Acetate of the Month". This is one that I've labeled, as you can see, "Dragnet Parody and R. M. Cunningham Narrating An Anniversary Party, Circa 1955. It starts with a parody of "Dragnet", featuring an incident which is described as having occurred at an intersection on the southwest side of Chicago, an incident described as having occurred in 1930. The suspect in the story was returning from a wedding, presumably the wedding for which the anniversary that "Bobby Cunningham" narrates, over the second half of the record. He tells stories of the wedding day and other events from around that time, including some surreptitious alcohol supplying and imbibing from the prohibition era. An odd and entertaining record. I'm guessing the record is from 1955, given the reference to a 25th anniversary and the earlier reference to 1930. 

Download: Dragnet Parody and R. M. Cunningham Narrating an Anniversary Party, Circa 1955

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A piece of paper was taped to the above acetate, as seen below, giving me the latter part of this track's name (and the "R.M." instead of "Bob"). It says 1951, but 1930 plus 25 is 1955, and I'm going with that. 

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And lastly, here is another "Very Short Reel". The title of this one explains this well, too. Some early elementary children sing and say nursery rhymes and/or offer birthday wishes to one of their classmates, Mike. The sounds quality is iffy as the tape was poorly stored and is damaged.

By the way, in the song "Itsy Bitsy Spider", the sun dries up the rain. It doesn't "wash away" the rain - which is what they sing here - that doesn't even make sense! Sheesh. 

Download: Some Elementary School Children - Happy Birthday Mike and Nursery Rhymes

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The Young Sound of '68, Bishop Sheen Talks to Teenagers, The Supreme Court in 1963, a Combo in 1966, TV School, and THE RETURN OF PETE!

Greetings! 

It's been almost a month since my last posting - again due to stuff here at home - and I may not get another post out this month, so I'm going to share a LOT of stuff here, five and a half hour's worth. 

Just a few quick comments before I get to this week's offerings. Regarding a short tape I included in my last post - the end of a broadcast day at an Indiana station - Chad offered up the following: 

Wow! That's almost certainly the only extant recording of WHFS, which only appears in radio directories from 1956 through 1958. There were a lot of short lived FM radio stations in the early days, the technology being new and slow to catch on. Airchecks of any radio station from this era are rare, FM Radio airchecks of this era are nearly non-existent, to begin with but to find one from such a short lived station is practically a Holy Grail!

In that case, I am extremely glad to have found/shared it. 

Regarding an item in a post three months ago featuring a lot of unknown music as heard on powerhouse Top 40 station WINS, Ken had this suggestion: 

One other thing that occurred to me after my post above. Murray the K was on WINS. He had a nightly feature where he'd play 5 new records and listeners would vote on them. The weekday winners would be in the "finals" on Saturday night. This meant that he was playing 25 new records each week, many of which were never heard again. I'm willing to bet a lot of those unknown tracks are from those shows.

Thanks, guys, and thanks to everyone for such great comments. I appreciate your visits, your reading and your listening. 

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Full radio airchecks - of any vintage and any format - seem to be a favorite of many of you out there reading this site, so I will start with a couple of recordings, found on either side of a reel of tape, of a rather esoteric and fairly short lived format, one that I can't believe was ever successful. And it happened right here in Chicago. 

The station was WBBM-FM and it was the late 1960's. You can read about it right here. The powers that be wanted to appeal to young people - I would guess those under 25 - but not play any of that icky rock and roll. So - and I'll paraphrase Wikipedia here - one would hear bland instrumental cover versions of recent hits, pop instrumentals (distinctly on the Herb Alpert end of things), and rock-adjacent-but-not-really-rock vocal hits such as those from Petula Clark.

They called this "The Young Sound". Yeah. "The Young Sound."

I don't have the ratings books from 1966-1970, but "The Young" of Chicago could not possibly have been listening in droves to "The Young Sound" on WBBM in 1968. They weren't MOR-ons. 

The first side of this tape seems to have been made "open air" in someone's home - you can hear all manner of conversation and noises in the background and sometimes close to being in the foreground. Not so on the flip side. The first side is likely from 1968. The second side is definitely from September 18th, 1968, based on some of the news reported therein. The deejay is Bud Kelly. The linked Wikipedia article makes it sound like Bud Kelly was the ONLY deejay there. 

Download: Bud Kelly on WBBM-FM, Chicago, 'The Young Sound", circa 1968 (with background sound)

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Download: Bud Kelly on WBBM-FM, Chicago, 'The Young Sound', 9-18-68

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On to some live show-band stuff. In addition to the comments above, I also heard from frequent poster and friend of both of my blogs, Timmy, who expressed his undying love for bar/lounge acts. I'm not sure this is exactly up his alley, but if not, it is probably close. 

I have recently discovered that I have a treasure trove of tapes featuring the performances of a troupe variously identified on these tapes as "Styles" and as "The Jack Dodd Shaffer Quintet". I may not have that latter name quite right, and the different stage names may have depended on how many members were in the band (it appears to have varied) or perhaps the name changed during their existence as a group. And I don't have a name to attach to this particular performance, as the name of the combo is not on the box and doesn't appear to be spoken during the recording. 

All of the tapes feature the same basic shows, with some variety as to the particular songs played and the sketches and humor included. 

That's right, sketches and humor. The act, on most of these tapes, contains set pieces, some of them rather lengthy, all of them moronic and most of them built around vapid jokes of a sexual nature that barely qualify as adolescent humor. I'm sure it was all a bit risqué for the 1960's, at least in some environs. Perhaps those who thought this stuff was funny and/or cutting edge were the same people who thought 17 year olds in 1968 wanted to hear Petula Clark and instrumental version of the Doors. It all ties together, doesn't it? 

Anyway, there is A LOT MORE where this came from, if anyone is interested, or even if no one is interested. So now, for your dining, dancing and laughing pleasure, here they are, the whatever-their-name-was-band, straight from New Year's Day, 1966 at Dick's Rancho Inn in Millbrook, New York. I can't find the tape box at the moment, which is odd, because I just digitized this tape three weeks ago, but the above information is written on the box, and I'll add a scan, when I find it. 

This is for you, Timmy! And if you, or anyone else wants more, let me know: 

Download: Unknown Combo - Music and Comedy at Dick's Rancho Inn, Millbrook, New York, 1-1-66

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And speaking of music that some people can't get enough of, and others wish there was none of, I now present the second of two features on PETE! In my last post, I shared one tape that Pete made, in which he apparently collected a bunch of his older tapes, onto a five inch reel. 

On this tape, Pete did the same, with some comments here and there. But this time, for whatever reason, Pete frequently chose to sing along with the tapes he was copying, with the original on the left channel and the new, further vocal accompaniments on the right channel. The thing is - and here I will quote what I wrote last month: "These performances are, to use the technical term, awful. And it does not appear that Pete was particularly aware of this."

I wrote a lot more about Pete in that last post, and I won't repeat that or go on about him here. The following are the two sides of this tape. The first side, as indicated by its title, contains some other, non-Pete recordings at the end, including the odd juxtapositioning of a bawdy, double entendre 78 RPM record with a religiously themed record. 

Download: Pete - Pete's Hootenanny, Part One (and a Bit of Potpourri)

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Download: Pete - Pete's Hootenanny, Part Two

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As with the other tape, Pete chose to fill nearly every inch of the outside of the tape box with writings about the tape's contents, as you can see: 

Additionally, he included four scraps of paper and cardboard with further information. Well, three with further information and one with a partial ad for Volkswagen. 

He also wrote on the inside of the box: 

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Bishop Fulton Sheen was, during his lifetime, one of the most famous men in the country. Read about him, if you'd like at the link I just shared. So when I found a tape called "Bishop Sheen Talks to Teenagers", I figured it was probably a recording that was readily available online. But... that doesn't appear to be the case, unless my searching simply failed to turn it up. This recording appears to be from a television broadcast, rather than a record, so maybe that's why it's not out there somewhere (unless it is). This actually goes in a few directions I wasn't expecting, before landing on the same old reciting of expectations that I knew were coming at some point. Here is that tape: 

Download: Bishop Sheen Talks to Teenagers

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"Continental Classroom" was - to directly quote Wikipedia this time - "a U.S. educational television program that was broadcast on the NBC network five days a week in the early morning from 1958 to 1963, covering physics, chemistry, mathematics, and American government. It was targeted at teachers and college students and many institutions offered college credit for courses of which the broadcasts were the main component." 

I have featured the program here before - at some point, I obtained a LARGE collection of tapes made of a wide range of media recordings, including, in several cases, episodes of this show. 

With the Supreme Court in the news seemingly every three days nowadays, I thought I'd share the recordings of a three part series on the court, which aired in February of 1963. I'll share one segment per post for the next three posts. Here is the first one: 

Download: Continental Classroom - 2-12-63 - The Supreme Court, Part One

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And now for an EXTREMELY Short "Very Short Reel". At 43 seconds, it's not the shortest segment featured at the end of a post, but it's close. I've called it "A Brother and Sister and Their Dad". And I'll let you enjoy its pleasures without saying anything else. 

Download: A Brother and Sister and Their Dad

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A '79 Demo Reel, A '53 Audition Tape, Demonstrating Stereo, Old Timey Music, Continental Classroom, Etc. Etc.

Your host is back yet again, with another batch of fabulous reel to reel sounds!

To start, here's a fellow named Walt Jackson, working for country station WMPS in Memphis ("68 Country!") in the fall of 1979, and capturing that work on a demo reel, no doubt in order to further his career at a larger or more prestigious station. 

Download: Walt Jackson Demo Reel - '68 Country', WMPS, 9-13-79

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On a related note, here is a fellow named Charles R Hughes, some time in April of 1953, trying to sound like he's already on radio station WFUV-FM, a non-commercial station in New York which was then still relatively new (it went on the air in 1947), but which is still in business today. Or maybe that's "still in non-business" today. 

The clues that he is not already on the station? Well, first, the tape box is labeled as an audition. But also, the stories he is reporting, while all from the early Spring of 1953, are not all from the same date or week. He gathered together some recent stories in order to provide an interesting newscast audition. 

Download: Charles R Hughes - Audition Tape for WFUV-FM, Circa Mid-April, 1953

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Here's that tape box: 

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Next up, here are the sounds contained on yet another one of those "Stereo Demonstration Tapes", the ones which typically came with your new tape recorder to show off what it could do, or perhaps which also might have been used by salesmen in the store (or in the home) to make that final push in a potential sale to a customer. In this case, it's an early effort by a corporation which would later become a powerhouse in the home audio field, Sony. As always, the examples range from sound effects that travel from speaker to speaker to orchestral music.

Download: Sony Stereo Pre-Recorded Demonstration Tape

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And here's that tape (I don't have a box for it)

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And now, something considerably more... homey. Here is a gathering of friends and/or family, in the fall of 1959, working together to perform some traditional music as well as pop songs of the past in a very homely, amateur style, for almost exactly an hour. I'm sure this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but I love this stuff. 

I cannot find the tape box for this just now, but the information on names and the date, below, are from that box. 

Download: Music at Home - Bill, Vernene, Ida and Ralph, 10-9-59

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"Continental Classroom" was an effort by NBC-TV to offer some educational matter to viewers in the late 1950's and early 1960's. Each season focused on a different subject, including Physics, Chemistry, Math and Government. You can read about it here. The 1963-64 season actually consisted of reruns of Government episodes from the previous season. I have a batch of tapes from someone who periodically recorded episodes of the show, and, from that 1962-63 season, here is an episode on "The Legislative Process". If you want more of these, let me know!

Download: Continental Classroom - 1-63 - The Legislative Process

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And now, it's time for our "Acetate of the Month". In this case, it's an acetate which contains what sounds like a College Glee Club running through a series of songs, contained on both sides of an Audiodisc acetate which has nothing written on its label. 

Download: College Glee Club - Unlabeled - One Side

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Download: College Glee Club - Unlabeled - Other Side

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And now, our "Very Short Reel". Here we have a young woman who is overjoyed to have won.... some sort of contest and is very thankful to everyone involved. 

Download: "An Evening That I'll Never Forget"

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